


Blossoms of Old, Growth of New

by mirianilavellan



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-10-30 13:17:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10877568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirianilavellan/pseuds/mirianilavellan
Summary: Random Solavellan shorts.  Nothing fancy, just observations, largely from the point of Solas.





	1. Chapter 1

Her face was so expressive, when he allowed himself to look. And he came to allow himself to look, for her words were few and not freely bandied about. Most of what she had to say was written in the curve of her lips, a slight frown, a sideways glance. A searching or questioning look, and her stare was something that could make even he lose track of his sentences, reducing nervous servants to tittering messes, always remedied with a kind smile and gentle reassurances. He wondered what would be written on her face now, as he crossed her quarters, calling out her name quietly. _Miriani._ She needed to hear it, Cole said, to pull her back down to earth and ground her in the soft scent of summer blossoms and sweet homemade perfume.

“Out here.” Came the quiet reply, inviting him over. She sat resting on a cushion against the stone wall of the balcony, surrounded by smoke. Dalish incense burned atop a charcoal tablet in a clay dish, and her fingers moved around a delicate pipe filled with some kind of smoking herb he did not recognise. She offered him an apologetic half smile and he read the words in his mind. _I know, it’s not the best, but..._

“You did not want to join the others in the tavern.”

“Don’t tell the Iron Bull, but I don’t like to drink.”

She offered him the pipe and he took it, after a pause, breathing in its strange smoke and grimacing at the taste. She laughed lightly as he exhaled and leant against the barrier opposite.

“It’s my birthday today.”

He studied her. “I did not know. Happy Birthday. You did not tell the others?”

“No. I’m surprised Leliana said nothing.”

Her tone was even, but her expression was annoyed. Nobody liked their mail opened, after all. She shook off the look, becoming thoughtful, subconsiously touching her the curling vines of her vallaslin.

“Did it put you in a great deal of pain?”

He took her away from whatever thoughts she had begun and she glanced at him, amused. “Of course. The sensitive part of the cheeks is worse.  They don’t allow you elfroot either, the pain is supposed to be... transformative.”

He tried not to think about laying kisses upon those cheeks and elsewhere as he handed her back the pipe.“And was it?”

Her amused look broke into a brief smile as she took another draw, “Made easier by telling the Creators to go ahead and fuck themselves when I thought no-one was listening. As became quiet habit. ”

He chuckled, althought it was not quite an answer, “I thought the whole point was to honour them, was it not? Why go through it at all in that case?”

“Did I do it for them? You really know nothing about me.”

Neither her expression nor tone had changed, but but he thought he heard another layer to the comment, which stung him in its truth. Disregard, dismissal?

“I meant no offense.”

She looked up at him, shaking her head with a smile, her red hair glinting as stray strands fluttered in the wind. I know you didn’t, and there was none taken. His lover shifted slightly on her cushion, another invitation and he accepted once more, sinking down to the floor beside her. He felt her rest her head against his shoulder, knew her eyes were closing accompanied by a quiet sigh that he had yet to examine the layers of. Relief, an easing of tension, something else. Lath. He smiled and kissed the top of her head before nudging her slightly, making her raise her face to him and look into his eyes with her own. He ran a thumb gently over her lip and was rewarded with a smile he recognised the meaning of with no interpretation.

“Come, let’s celebrate.”


	2. Chapter 2

“ _Well, my Lord_ ,” she said, in perfectly poetic Antivan, her teeth bared slightly like a wolf on the hunt, “ _The Orlesians do not wash themselves after they fuck, and the Fereldens do not wash themselves after they shit. So at least in this it is our peoples who have the most in common_.”

The Antivan Merchant Lord stared at her for a moment, his eyes widening, before he let out a bark of laughter and followed her along the rows of neatly planted rose bushes, blossoming in a sweet shade of pink. Solas followed them dutifully, purposefully making himself smaller next to the Inquisition’s own Ambassador, who was hiding a smile he could only describe as _proud_. But this was not all Josephine’s doing, he knew, as he watched Miriani Lavellan place her hand on the merchant’s arm as though quite by accident. She was adept at playing these little games, a lifetime dealing with all manner of persons on her clan’s behalf, as she had told him when he observed her ease with the nobility. But there was something else, he fancied, an entanglement with the Marcher nobility that had taught her how to read the signs and set the stage, or perhaps even an adventure or two in Antiva City. He never pried, and although her mother had been Antivan her knowledge of the language was too complete in the colloquial, too vulgar to have only been learnt from a parent’s loving tongue.

She had been teaching him, in exchange for the Elvhen, although she had expressed that it was a poor exchange, this human language for the poetic cadance of his people’s speech. But he simply shook her head, never letting on how much he knew of the language already, never that he simply enjoyed her sweet company. Her laughing and almost-blushes as she taught him how to swear like a dockworker, her theatrical wide-eyes when he taught her the same in his language. Their language. Perhaps he could allow her that.

He was not the only one fascinated with her, he observed, watching the distant glances of noble Orlesians, Fereldens and the elven servants alike as they passed through the gardens of the chateau. It was a lovely day in Val Royaux, the sun shining off the Inquisitor’s red hair, reflecting in those dark eyes of hers as she gave the merchant a grin that was positively mischeivous. If her mission was to secure foreign trade and preferred service, it seemed she had secured much more if the way he looked at her with positive... fondness in his eyes was any indication. He suddenly found himself disgusted by this, although he knew he had no right to. He had a sudden fantasy of stealing her behind one of these marble pillars, pushing her up against the trailing ivy and stealing a single kiss. One that would leave her breathless, one that expressed something these nobles and merchants never could give to her. Genuinity.

But he must have been frowning visably, for when he looked up he caught the raising of her eyebrow as she glanced over at him. She would ask later if he was alright, and she would mean it. And he would deflect, probably. Or else tell her partly the reason. That he feared for her around these snakes in the grass, worried one of them would go to far. But not that he wished she did not have to have these unworthy eyes rake over her. Never that he wished she could be for his alone, even though he was perhaps the most unworthy of them all.

Excusing himself from the disinterested Ambassador, he retired to a safe distance, where the smell of her perfume and the dancing of the sunlight upon her hair like sparks could no longer intoxicate him to the point of senselessness. Whatever the worst part of it all was, he knew even before she had kissed him in that dream, that should he ask it in an instant she would be his alone. Working his tired fingers over an aching brow, Solas sighed, and retreated into the cooled rooms of the chateau to unravel his jittering nerves.


End file.
